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Comment by ethical_source | Hacker News Reader

Do you understand, intellectually, that quite a few of your colleagues find gestures like juxtaposing the Rust logo and the LGBTQ* flag off-putting and resent being unable articulate our discomfort while all your specious complaints get addressed instantly?

We don't bear you any ill will. We just don't want your sexuality shoved in our faces. I've been hearing claims of the necessity of doing so for over a decade. It wasn't true back then and it's not true now.

There is no law of nature requiring that technology communities become platforms for celebrating certain personal identities. That's an absurd claim.

Honestly, it doesn't matter whether you understand. For over a decade, we've just wanted to be left alone. You have refused.

We won the last election. We can and will, with sadness but determination power, turn the power of the state against you and make you leave us the hell alone.

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> We just don't want your sexuality shoved in our faces.

The flag simply acknowledges that certain people have the right to exist. Extrapolating anything else out of that is you being weird.

> I've been hearing claims of the necessity of doing so for over a decade.

It seems to be necessary because you want to "turn the power of the state against you". All because of a rainbow?

> We won the last election.

Did the whole of humanity have an election that I missed? Just because an election at one time and in one place went one way or the other doesn't mean much to something that is global. If you're speaking of the US Election, a certain person didn't even get 50% of the vote. So, I don't see how you act like this is some mandate that means you get to silence other people.

> We can and will, with sadness but determination power, turn the power of the state against you and make you leave us the hell alone.

You don't seem sad about this at all.

My small site now sports a flag because it is clear it is needed. Are you going to come after me too?

Let me put it this way: computing as a field, and programming languages in particular would not be where they are today without the hard work and dedication of LGBTQ people in particular. I mean, we have to look no further than Alan Turing to understand this at a visceral level. In his tradition, LGBTQ people flock toward this field.

The reason the flag is in the Rust discord logo isn't because people are throwing their sexuality in your face. They put that flag up as a signal that the community is safe for other like-minded people. The flag stays up because the people who built the community want it up and keep it up. So the logo isn't juxtaposed with the LGBTQ flag -- juxtaposition implies contrast. Rust is intrinsically LGBTQ because it's built by LGBTQ people. That's the essence of community and languages if anything are communities.

This is what happens when someone's mere existence in public life is considered dangerous or "your sexuality being shoved in our faces" -- they stay inside, they find community in secret places where few people go, and they put up signs to signal to others similarly situated that they are welcome.

So of course we're not gonna take the flag down, it's up for a reason! Won't come down until that reason it's up goes away.

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